Flight features a commanding performance from Denzel Washington but a TV movie plot

Denzel Washington plays an alcoholic pilot who is hailed a hero in Flight (Picture: Paramount)

Film review: Robert Zemeckis’ Flight is worth seeing for Denzel Washington’s Oscar-nominated performance as well as a marvellously tense plane crash – but the rest is disappointingly soap opera-esque.

Scared of flying? You will be. We open with a flabby, hungover Denzel Washington (you still would) rolling off what we assume is a hooker before taking a slug of booze, snorting a line of cocaine, slipping on his pilot’s uniform and striding off to the airport. Sneaking a large vodka from the galley, it still takes a monster espresso and a hit of oxygen to straighten him out before he can fly.

Captain Whip Whitaker (Washington), you’ll have gathered, is a functional alcoholic whose abilities are tested to the limit when his passenger flight starts hurtling towards a crash. Thanks to his superlative flight skills, almost everyone survives and Whip is hailed as a hero – until the crash causes are investigated and a toxicology report demanded.

Heroes don’t come more morally ambiguous and we’re excitingly on course for some edgy, class A-strength, Breaking Bad-style dissection of ideals. It doesn’t happen. Oscar-nominated for Best Actor, Washington gives a commanding performance (and female fans might like to know, a cheeky a**e shot) as a middle-aged alcoholic in denial but he’s manning a flimsy vessel.

After that magnificently choreographed air disaster, so outstandingly tense and gripping I almost snapped a tendon, the drama disappointingly descends down a ‘will Whip find the strength to banish his demons?’ path straight out of a Victorian temperance pamphlet, before nose-diving into daytime TV movie triteness.

Still, it’s worth catching for Washington, plus that must-see opener, particularly in a cinema. This will surely beat even Snakes On A Plane as the least relaxing in-flight movie choice of all time.